From: Kathryn Aegis (k_aegis@mindspring.com)
Date: Sun Jan 02 2000 - 16:30:45 MST
Robin Hanson writes:
>Similarly, the fact that cultures
>can change rapidly doesn't say that we can do much by
>deliberately trying to change our culture. The size of
>the deliberate influence may be small compared to the
>other processes involved.
Much of the rapid change that we have experienced, just in
America, over the past 100 years has been the result of the
work of humans committed to change and progress--scientists,
activists, political leaders, authors, the founders of
the Internet.
>Before we change our genes much, we would do well to understand
>the evolutionary functions (if any) those genes performed.
Well, this is the entire problem. When it comes to gender,
there tends to be an all-or-nothing claim regarding the
influence of genetics on sex roles. Lorber's book is a 302-page
(plus 100 pages of citations) exercise in sociological skepticism,
delineating the parts of it for which there is strong evidence
that they are are culturally-invented and not genetically encoded.
Judy Mann also recently wrote a book on how to raise a child
without using some of these cultural constructions.
This represents the contribution that gender theory can make
to transhumanist endeavor--helping to educate and empower
humans to resist some of these cultural control mechanisms so
that they can truly pursue their potential. Can we agree on
that much?
Sincerely,
Kathryn
********************************************************
home page (some links active)
http://home.mindspring.com/~k_aegis
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Fri Nov 01 2002 - 15:06:14 MST